Pre Crick: Day 1

Adrian came up to the boat yesterday, and had it not be chucking it down with rain would have boated down to Wolverton. As it was, he decided to stay in the marina, and stocking up with food was done by car.

I had the last of my night shifts to do, and this morning caught a train up to Wolverton, where Adrian picked me up in the car. We set off from the marina almost immediately, at around 9.30. It was sunny and warm (as long as you weren't in the wind). There was plenty of wildlife about, including ducklings and goslings.

At Stoke Bruerne locks we teamed up with a Gayton hire boat, and with a number of crew, progress was pretty quick, even though we were following two boats up. We did some synchronised boating across the shorter pounds.

We had to wait ages for the penultimate lock. The pound above was rather low, and there was a hire boat of Canadians who didn't go into the lock because it had been left open -- and they didn't realise it was to help them.

We moored at the top of the locks, having seen Kathryn. We're going to eat with her in the Navigation this evening, so we'll get the latest on her recovery from her broken hip. We're moored just along from the museum, which is prime territory for having people peering in as they walk past. With it being a nice day, there are plenty of people about.

Normally, we take two days to get to Crick, and go as far as we can on the first day. But as the past few weeks have been both busy and emotional, we're taking the whole week. The plan was to spend some time beyond Crick; but at the moment one of the Buckby Locks is out of action and we don't know when it will be repaired. So we haven't come very far today, and tomorrow we might only be able to go to the bottom of the Buckby flight. We'll just have to wait for news and play it by ear.

6 miles, 7 locks.